An archivist for the Ayn Rand Institute told us that although most of Rand's financial records were destroyed at the time of her death and they have no physical evidence of her receiving Social Security distributions, Evva Pryor's testimony was backed up by Rand's secretary, Cynthia Peikoff, who helped the author with her finances during the last two years of her life and reported seeing Social Security checks.

In the sim­plest terms, Rand dis­cov­ered at the end of her life that she was only human and in need of help. Rather than starve or drop dead—as she would have let so many oth­ers do—she took the help on offer.